by Linda Turner
Sam Katz wasn’t a big man, thankfully, but Rocky didn’t fool herself into thinking he was a featherweight. He might not be muscle-bound, but he was solid and outweighed her by a good thirty or more pounds. Studying him, she nodded grimly. “I might have to stop every twenty yards or so, but, yeah, I can do it.” Moving to the foot of the stretcher, she squatted and got a good grip. “One…two…three!”
Twenty minutes later, standing outside the small one-man tent they’d just eased Sam into, Rocky watched as Luke disappeared inside the narrow space to make sure the hunter would be comfortable for the night and found herself confronted with another problem. When she hurriedly packed for this rescue attempt, she’d thought she’d brought along everything she would need for any emergency that might crop up. But she’d never expected to spend the night. She’d included one tent, one that was almost a carbon copy of Sam’s, in her backpack as a precaution, in case Lucas needed a dry, sheltered area in which to treat Sam’s injuries. And now she was going to have to share that same tent with the doc.
Her heart did a slow slide into her stomach at the thought. Hugging herself, she reminded herself she was a professional. And so was Lucas. They were only up here at the top of the world because of their work, and the situation was hardly romantic. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d been trapped in such miserable conditions. She was cold and hungry and tired, and her clothes were wet. She’d called Charlie on Sam’s cellular to let him know about the change of plans, and all she wanted to do now was find a place out of the wind, dry out, then get some sleep. And to do that, she had to set up the tent. Her chin set with resolve, she went to work.
Ten minutes later, she was finished. Luckily, they’d brought enough thermal blankets for an army, so there would be plenty of covers to keep them warm. Her hands on her hips, her frown directed at the tent, which seemed to get smaller every time she looked at it, she let out a wistful sigh. She’d feel a whole lot better if the dang thing was about three times bigger. The way it was, one of them wouldn’t be able to move so much as an eyelash without the other one feeling it.
Lost in thought, she never saw Lucas ease his wide shoulders through the opening of Sam’s tent and crawl out. Suddenly he was standing behind her and watching her with a quizzical frown. “Problems?”
Startled, she whirled to find him less than four feet behind her, his knowing eyes seeing far too much. “No! I mean yes!” Hot color surged into her cheeks, mortifying her. Dragging in a calming breath, she let it out in a huff and forced a smile that was more than a little strained. “What I mean is that I didn’t exactly plan for a sleepover in the mountains, so this will have to do.” Grimacing, she turned her attention back to the tent—the very tiny tent, she realized now that she’d gotten another look at Lucas’s shoulders. “Please tell me it’s bigger than a sardine can.”
“It’s bigger than a sardine can,” he repeated obediently, then ruined the effect by adding with a grin, “if you’re a shrimp. Are you actually planning on both of us sleeping in that thing?”
“I don’t see that we have much option…unless you want to bunk with Sam,” she added hopefully.
“And chance bumping him in my sleep? I don’t think so.”
Somehow she’d had a feeling he’d say that. Giving in graciously to the inevitable, she sighed in defeat. “Then I guess it’s just you and me, Doc. You want the right side or the left? It makes no difference to me.”
He chose the left, but instead of following her inside as she expected, he squatted down on his haunches in front of the tent opening and peered in at her. “I’ll be right back—I’m going to check on Sam one more time. While I’m doing that, you can get out of those wet clothes.”
Four
“I can what?”
“Strip,” he said flatly. “And don’t even think about giving me an argument on this, lady. Your clothes are wet, and so are mine. The last thing we need right now is frostbite.”
“But—”
“You’ve got five minutes, Rocky. I suggest you don’t waste them.”
Outraged temper flashed in her eyes, but before she could tell him what he could do with his five minutes, he was gone, letting the tent flap fall shut behind him. Of all the incredible nerve! she fumed. Who did he think he was, ordering her around as if she were some kind of kid who didn’t know when to come in from the rain? Strip, indeed! She’d strip when she was good and ready, and not until then.
You do that, Miss Hoity-toity, a needling voice drawled in her head. You wait long enough, and the doc’ll be back to enjoy the show. Is that what you want?
Her heart rolled over in her chest at the thought, heated images playing before her eyes…. Lucas crowding into the tent with her, his brown eyes nearly black as he watched her slowly remove her clothes, piece by piece, with fingers that trembled. He wouldn’t touch her—not at first, anyway—but he wouldn’t have to. The stroke of those wolfish eyes of his would be as physical as a caress. Before he ever laid a hand on her, she would be seduced.
Was that what she wanted? To be seduced by Lucas Greywolf?
Instinctively she immediately rejected the idea, but deep inside a pulse quickened with expectation. Dismayed, she stiffened. No, she thought firmly. He’d just caught her off guard, that was all. She hadn’t planned on spending the night in the mountains at all, let alone in a one-man tent with Lucas. And naked, at that! Add the memory of a couple of scorching kisses to that scenario, and it was no wonder she was being fanciful.
“He didn’t tell you to strip because he plans to ravage you,” she muttered to herself in disgust. “It was strictly for health reasons, so this is no time to act like an outraged virgin. You keep this all business, and he will, too. So get out of your damn clothes and under the covers before he gets back!”
Casting a quick eye to the tent entrance, she wondered how long he had been gone and hurriedly began to shed her damp clothes. Shivering, her fingers far from steady, she hesitated when she got to her bra and panties, reluctant to take them off. But they were damp from the moisture that had seeped through the rest of her clothes, and with a resigned sigh she tugged them off, then scrambled under the covers. She’d hardly settled onto her side of the tent and switched off the flashlight before Lucas was back and easing inside.
Lying with her back to him, the covers pulled all the way up to her ears, she clung to her side, but there just wasn’t enough room for the two of them in the small tent. His arm brushed her shoulder, his hip nudged hers, and suddenly she couldn’t breathe without dragging in the scent of him. Going perfectly still, she found herself waiting for the next innocent touch. But it was the growling of his zipper that accosted her senses next, then the rustle of his pants as he tugged them off.
Her heart slammed against her ribs, and between one heartbeat and the next, her mouth went as dry as dust. Don’t be a ninny, she ordered herself sternly. But it was already too late. Professional or not, there was no way she could lie there and pretend indifference while a man peeled out of his clothes right next to her. Especially when that man was Luke Greywolf. With every article of clothing he removed, she found it harder and harder to think of anything except that. He was spending the night with her in the buff. How, dear God, was she supposed to even think about sleeping?
Her senses spinning, she never heard him finish undressing, but suddenly he was stretching out beside her under the covers. Silence engulfed them, as thick and tangible as a creeping fog, while outside the wind moaned and howled and threw snow against the nylon walls of the tent. It was a cold sound, and unbearably lonely. Behind her, she felt Lucas’s body heat scorching her back, warming her all the way to her toes. Her fingers curling into fists in the blanket as she clutched it to her like a shield, it was all she could do not to roll back and snuggle up against him.
Rocky never knew how long they lay like that, stiff and unmoving, waiting for something neither of them wanted to acknowledge. Her heart jerking in her breast, her nerve endings starti
ng to tremble from the strain, she willed herself to relax, but she was as rigid and unbending as an old maid who had never known a man’s touch.
Finally, unable to stand the silence another second, she blurted out, “Do you think the snow’ll stop by morning?”
The question was like a shout in the darkness, shattering the tense, intimate quiet. A second passed, then another, before Luke said in a rough voice, “It should blow itself out by morning, especially with this wind.”
Silence fell again, thicker than before. Shifting restlessly, Rocky said, “I guess you spent a lot of time in these mountains as a kid, huh?”
“How did you know I grew up here?”
Surprised that he even had to ask, she said, “Are you kidding? According to the grapevine, you’re the greatest thing since sliced bread around here. Not only did you actually make it off the reservation and all the way through medical school, you came back. Apparently most people don’t.”
“I’m not most people.” Lying on his side, facing her, her scent surrounding him and slowly driving him out of his mind, Lucas would have sworn he had no intention of discussing his past with her. But the night and the intimacy of their surroundings invited confidences, and without quite realizing how it happened, he found himself telling her about a childhood spent exploring the forests and streams that his ancestors had claimed as their own and about the hold the land had on his heart. A hold that he hadn’t even realized was there until he went away to college and found himself miserable with homesickness. He hadn’t come back for any altruistic reasons, at least not any he was willing to discuss with her, but simply because he had no other choice. He hadn’t been able to stay away.
“So you came back home and got married and set up your practice,” she said quietly. “Was your wife from here, also, or someone you met in college?”
Not surprised that she knew about Jan—the local matchmakers had probably told her the story her first day in town—he flinched at the images that flashed before his mind’s eye. Jan, with her dancing eyes and flashing smile, full of sass and vinegar, as daring as the woman who lay beside him. It was her eagerness to experience all that life had to offer that he’d fallen in love with—and the reason he’d lost her. There hadn’t been anything she wouldn’t try, including mountain climbing. When she’d fallen trying to scale a sheer rocky cliff, all of his medical skills hadn’t been enough to put her back together again. He should have been able to do something, but he hadn’t, dammit, and he would live with that regret the rest of his life.
“We went to high school together,” he said shortly.
“And she waited for you all that time? She must have loved you very much—”
“As much as I loved her,” he said curtly, cutting her off. “Losing her was hell, which is why I don’t ever intend to love anyone like that again. Now that we’ve got that cleared up, I suggest we both get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a hard day.”
He couldn’t have been more blunt if he told her flat out not to get any ideas about him, and Rocky got the message loud and clear. He was still in love with his dead wife.
As if she cared, she thought huffily. He didn’t have to worry about her tripping him and beating him to the ground. The last thing she wanted was a no-win competition with a ghost for a man’s affection.
But as she mumbled a toneless good-night and scooted as far from him as possible, it wasn’t relief that coursed through her, but something that felt an awful lot like disappointment.
Lucas was too conscientious about his patient and too aware of the naked woman beside him to sleep for longer than a few hours at a time. Waking just after midnight, he tugged on his clothes and waded through the drifts that had piled up between the two tents to check on Sam, who was, thankfully, sleeping soundly. As warm as toast in his down sleeping bag and showing no signs of a fever or infection, the hunter didn’t so much as blink an eyelash when Lucas checked his vital signs. He was still pale and more than a little haggard, and he was damn lucky to be alive. Satisfied that the sedative he’d given him would keep him comfortable for at least three more hours, Lucas quietly crawled back out into the snow and zipped the tent opening closed.
The wind was still howling, and it cut through his clothes like a knife. Swearing, he slogged through the drifts to his and Rocky’s tent and quickly let himself in, dragging the zipper shut behind him the second he was inside, but not before he let in a fair amount of icy wind. Rocky whimpered in her sleep and shifted slightly, unwittingly revealing a bare shoulder. Not stopping to think, Lucas moved to tug the cover up closer around her neck.
He should have let her be—she would eventually have burrowed deeper under the covers—but touching her seemed to be an instinct, one he could no more control than he could the call of the wind. His fingers closed around the blankets, pulling them higher, and in the process the backs of his fingers brushed against skin that was down-soft and temptingly warm. Fascinated, he stared down at her in the dark, unable to draw his hand away.
Later, he couldn’t have said when she opened her eyes. One second she was asleep beside him, her lashes dark smudges against cheeks that were still rosy and chapped from the wind, and the next she was blinking up at him sleepily, the beginnings of a slow smile flirting with the edges of her mouth, as if she had been dreaming of him and was pleasantly surprised to wake and find him beside her.
Yeah, right, he almost snorted. If she’d been dreaming of him, she wouldn’t have been smiling. The lady didn’t like him. Oh, she might kiss him like there was no tomorrow, but that didn’t mean a damn thing. When she really needed somebody she could count on, she’d called every other doctor in town to help her before she stooped to calling him. If that didn’t tell him what she thought of him, nothing else would.
But when she smiled up at him with the hint of a promise in those sultry eyes of hers, he felt the heat of it all the way to his toenails.
“Go back to sleep,” he said in a voice that was little more than a sandpaper-rough whisper. “I was just checking on Sam.”
She closed her eyes obediently, but instead of drifting back into her dreams, as he expected, she murmured, “You’re wet. You need to get out of those clothes.” And before he could stop her, she reached for the zipper of his jacket.
Like a steel trap, his fingers closed around hers. “What do you think you’re doing?”
It was his low, sexy growl that finally brought Rocky completely awake. The sleep fogging her brain lifting abruptly, she blinked, then froze at the sight of her fingers caught in Lucas’s. Her eyes flew to his, and the heat she saw there almost singed her hair. With agonizing slowness, her heart started to pound.
She should move, jerk her hand back, burrow under the covers and put as much space between them as the confines of the tent would allow. But even as her outraged common sense was shouting orders at her, her fingers moved, but only to tug the tab of the zipper lower. “You said yourself that we need to be careful of frostbite, Doc,” she replied in a husky voice she hardly recognized as her own. “I was just helping you get undressed.”
Beneath her suddenly sensitive fingertips, she felt his harshly indrawn breath and every word that seemed to rumble from deep in his chest. “I’m not a child, Rocky. When a woman pulls my clothes off, she’s usually asking for one thing. If you’re not, I suggest you keep your hands to yourself.”
Her gaze caught and held by his in the darkness, she stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. Then, slowly, deliberately, she unzipped his jacket the rest of the way and reached for the buttons of his flannel shirt.
A muscle twitching in his jaw, he pulled her hand away until she wasn’t touching him at all…but only so that he could pull off the rest of his clothes with a haste he made no attempt to conceal. Then he was diving under the covers and reaching for her, all in one smooth motion that stole her breath. Shuddering as his arms slid around her, she surged against him. “You’re cold.”
“So warm me,” he rasped, and co
vered her mouth with his.
It was a night for dreams, for fantasies, stolen out of time. Her senses reeling from the taste and feel of him against her, Rocky ran her hands over him, delighted with the chance to explore him to her heart’s content. Tomorrow, no doubt, there would be second thoughts, but she would deal with them then. For now, there was nothing but the two of them on top of the world.
Skin against skin. How could she have known that it would take nothing more than that to light a fire between them? Her breasts settled against the hard, unyielding wall of his chest, her legs tangled with his, and with a sweet rush of feeling sparks flared at every point of contact. Entranced, her mouth hot and hungry under his, she slowly trailed her hands across the breadth of his shoulders, down his back and over the curve of his hips, exploring the texture of skin and muscle and the powerful way he was made, loving the feel of him. And everywhere she touched, heat flared under her fingertips.
His breathing low and ragged in the hushed silence of the tent, he tore his mouth from hers and buried it against the pulse hammering at the base of her throat. “You’re killing me, honey,” he growled when she touched him everywhere but where he burned for her. “I want your hands on me.”
She didn’t have to ask where. Sliding her hand between their bodies, she closed her fingers around the length of him and gloried in the groan she drew from him. “Like that?”
His teeth gritted against the pleasure of her hesitant caresses, the angles and planes of his face harsh with passion, Lucas stood it as long as he could, then abruptly pulled her hand from him before he went off like a rocket. “Enough!” he said hoarsely, rolling her under him and kissing her fiercely. “You’re driving me out of my mind.”
